Thirty-Two Seconds
by VerelLupin
Summary: 32 seconds doesn't seem like a lot but the most important revelations can be made in the smallest amounts of time. Sometimes its all the time you have.
1. Rick

**This all started with a conversation that Andrew Lincoln said he had with Laurie Holden during filming of Season 3. I thought it was cute and this was born. **

**First Up Rick Grimes.  
**

**Enjoy...**

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It took exactly thirty-two seconds to figure out that the baby Lori was carrying was not his and that was the beginning of the end.

How could she think he'd believe it was? He'd only been back a few weeks, it wasn't impossible but it was improbable and he'd have to be a complete idiot to miss all the angry looks that Shane was throwing him every other moment.

He'd have to be an even bigger idiot to believe Lori when she told him it had only been the one time and though he'd grown up in what many of his companions would deem a hick town, Rick Grimes was no idiot nor was he the leader they all expected him to be.

But he played both parts because what else was he supposed to do? It wasn't like he could ask for a divorce or tell Lori he was moving out. So instead he kept his mouth shut and did the job nobody else wanted, didn't matter if he wanted it or not.

He lost his wife to his revelation of killing Shane and lost so many during the farm massacre. He lost his will to be what people wanted and became what he had to be; it was no longer a democracy.

Then after more time than he cared to think about and while cleaning house, he heard Andrea's shouts and found her killing walkers with the determination that he had been missing of late, determination leeched by a wife that mourned his friend.

He pulled her into his arms and she stayed there while he checked that she was indeed okay. He spent days apologizing to her and she spent days telling him to go away but he'd found someone to occupy his mind during the cold lonely nights and he was not going to give that up too.

Then she'd kissed him and ran, he chased and kissed her back and they spent the next few minutes apologizing and making it up to each other. He might not be the leader he thought he should be but she supported him and fought with him when he was wrong but she never ever shut him out and he made sure to always look where she was whether he was coming or going.

She became his partner and he knew he couldn't ask for a better person to love.


	2. Shane

** I can't hate him. I felt bad for him, Lori used him and he paid the ultimate price.**

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It took exactly thirty-two seconds for him to realize that his best friend had just shoved a knife into his heart.

It didn't matter that they'd been friends since grade school, didn't matter that they'd been partners and that his quick thinking kept the military from shooting Rick where he lay.

All that mattered was that he was a threat to Rick's family, which had been his family for a short time.

Shane went down and as he did he thought of Lori, how beautiful she looked in his arms when she allowed him to hold her. How she hugged him when he brought back the supplies that saved Carl and begged him to come down from that tower. He didn't think of the near assault at the CDC or the way she told him to stay away from Carl.

He thought of Andrea, how proud she was when she killed that first walker under pressure. The weight of her on him in the front seat of his car and the way she desperately tried to hide the fact that in their moment of passion she'd whispered Rick's name while he said Lori's. She understood how hard it was to want someone you couldn't have and even once said they should make Lori trade places with her and he'd agreed wholeheartedly.

He thought of Dale and his meddling ways and how the old man didn't fear him. How he'd barely made any sound and kept his dignity even though he'd been eviscerated. At that moment he respected the man more than he had ever respected anybody else. Shane also knew that the old man had been right, he didn't belong in this new world and Shane wished for the first time that he didn't either.

And last he thought of Rick, of his friend and partner. The only one who had tried to keep him from being kicked off the farm, the one who was always reasonable no matter how much it cost him. The one who stood up for him again and again. He envied Rick's easy charm and the way things seem to keep working out for him and at the same he pitied his friend for Rick would never not know leadership and it was a burden Shane would never have to carry.

He wanted to say he was sorry and he knew in that moment that each and everyone of them had been right. He couldn't begrudge his friend the blood spilled after all Rick had warned him that the nonsense had to end and it had.

Too bad it had to mean so did he.


	3. Lori

**My least favorite character. Not cause she slept with Shane, she did think Rick was gone. **

**My hatred stems from what a whiny helpless nagging bitch she is to Rick. How she used Shane and drove the poor man crazy and the way she acts with all the women.**

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It took exactly thirty-two seconds to see what her slip with Shane really was and what that meant for her marriage.

She'd harassed Rick about Shane and Shane about him and now one was dead and the other was wishing he were. Lori knew that it was her fault.

She should have begged to see her husband's dead body. She should have fought and crawled her way to his bedside and pressed her head to his chest and hear for herself if his heart was as still as Shane had said it was.

But she hadn't, she'd chosen the easy road. She told herself that it was for the best and she left with Shane, depending on him, leaning on him, sleeping with him because it was easier than admitting she was a shitty wife. She let Carl depend and learn from Shane proving she was a shitty mother as well.

And even after Rick returned she didn't let up, she didn't redeem herself. Instead she put the two almost brothers against one and other and now she was minus both.

She watched his frantic pacing on the road where he confessed he killed Shane; saw his quick strides into every house trying to find them, and the baby that wasn't his, shelter. She watched his urgent jogging as he dispatched the walkers in the prison; saw his steady steps as he told her that their marriage had been over long before the apocalypse.

A week later she saw him flat out run to the fence in an effort to reach the blond haired woman and her companion as they tore through the never-ending walkers. She saw the shaky hands that ran over the other woman's arms and face.

He'd been her husband once but two weeks later when she saw him patrolling leisurely with Andrea, one hand gripping the other woman's waist, she knew that he was no longer hers.


	4. Andrea

**My favorite woman, needs to be more bad ass but Laurie Holden is still awesome. Hope they make them a couple soon, doubt it but hoping it happens in the prison while Lori's still in the picture. (Insert evil grin here)**

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It took thirty-two seconds for her to get up and wave her arms and for him to drive past and leave her behind.

She should have trusted her gut and stayed close to their leader instead of proving what a good shot she was but then there were a lot of things she should and shouldn't have done.

She should have told Rick about Lori and Shane. She shouldn't have slept with Shane. She should have apologized to Dale and she shouldn't have lowered herself to Lori's level and fought with her because she was jealous of her life. She should have kept an eye on Carl as well as Sophia; she shouldn't have shut out Carol and the rest of the group in favor of her depression.

She ran for her life and survived hours of walkers chasing her and yet managed to fall prey to a severe cold, of all things. Michonne and her had withstood walking around sick in freezing cold weather, lack of food and a crazy man running a town called Woodbury intact only to nearly die at the hands of walkers at the edge of salvation.

She heard Rick's voice shouting to Daryl and felt the instant relief and warmth she shouldn't be feeling. The walkers were dispatched and they were pulled to safety and his hands that were checking her for injuries. She was welcomed back and offered a home along with Michonne but she was too angry to fully let him in.

So she had spent the last three day getting up at three in the morning and thinking of the things she should and shouldn't be doing. She should be asleep because tomorrow they had to clear the wing that held the armory and Daryl would not appreciate her falling asleep on the job. She shouldn't be contemplating how close she'd come to dying out there.

She should let her anger go and forgive Rick for not coming back for her; they would have surely lost many more of their group if they had. She shouldn't want to kick his teeth in every time he apologized and begged her to understand that in the dark he had not seen her flag him down.

"You gave me thirty-two seconds of consideration." She'd tell him.

He'd look lost and whisper, "I'm sorry," and both would walk away from the other without finding the resolution they needed.

She should have respected that his wife was pregnant and very much needed him. She shouldn't have picked a fight with him during patrol because the sexual tension between them was killing her and she definitely shouldn't have kissed him just to keep his lips from forming that damm apology.

But she did and he was embarrassed and stuttering and she fled in mortification for allowing those feeling she'd been carrying since Atlanta to surface in a place she could not escape him and where he knew every nook and cranny and would no doubt search all of them until he found her because he was as stubborn as she was.

She should have fought him when he spun her around and planted an equally hot kiss on her lips. She shouldn't have invited him to do more by kissing him back. She should have stopped him from yanking her into the nearest abandoned room and she shouldn't have closed the door behind them.

She should have confessed that she had liked him since he let her get a necklace for her sister and that she'd been angry that he left her because he was the last one she cared about in this miserable world. She shouldn't have told him she didn't want to die without telling him how she felt about him even though he was married and it was wrong and that was why she had refused his apology but she did anyway because what else had she to lose.

"It took me thirty-two seconds after you kissed me out there to realize that I need you in ways that scare the hell out of me." He explained to her tear-streaked face.

She whispered, "that's not an apology."

"You don't seem to want to hear them."

"I don't. I just need you here with me."

"I don't plan on going anywhere," he replied and then he kissed every last tear away.


	5. Daryl

**1) Daryl is awesome and I love his affinity for squirrel meat.**

**2) He and Rick are BFFs**

**3) Because let's face it, the man is the sharpest of that bunch and picks up things way faster than anybody else. **

**4) Andrew and Norman are adorable in interviews and they are both funny and smoking hot.**

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It took six seconds for Daryl to see that Lori and Shane were shacking up plus they weren't all that quiet and the woods have always been his domain.

It took six seconds for him to see that Lori was a terrible wife for breaking up her husband and his brother and that Rick was too good for her but too much a gentleman to tell her to go to hell.

It took six seconds to realize that Andrea was missing from the highway and that they would not be looking for her like they did Sophia.

It took six seconds to pull Andrea and Michonne into the safety of the prison and see the blonde clinging to Rick in a way that Lori never had and that Rick didn't seem to mind.

It took six seconds to realize that Andrea had missed a button and Rick's belt was undone.

And it only took two seconds to laugh at their sheepish expressions and say, "about damn time."


End file.
